CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“IT IS GOOD to have you back, Miss.” Denker, Heloise’s butler, greeted India at the door.
“Thank you, Denker. It is good to be home.” India heaved a weary sigh. It was far later than she had hoped, but then there were moments during the journey from Paris when it had seemed endless.
In the eight years she had worked for Martin, she could not remember ever thinking him irritating. Or ever wishing he would just stop talking, if only for a moment. But Martin went on and on about how Derek was not the right man for her and how he should probably be thrown in prison. It was pointless to argue, even if she’d had the strength to do so. Finally, she had told him she didn’t wish to hear another word about Mr. Saunders and had said so in her coolest, no-nonsense manner.
The last thing she wanted to talk about was Derek. It was bad enough that she couldn’t get him out of her thoughts. She had trusted him, but how could you trust a man who kept secrets from you? Even if those secrets were not his to tell. Which made no sense at all.
“Lady Heloise assumed you would be arriving today, although she was not certain when,” Denker said. “She is in her rooms and asked that I awaken her when you arrived.”
“Thank you, Denker.” India paused. “How is she?”
“Frankly, Miss Prendergast, I don’t believe she has ever been better.”
India stared at him. “Do you really think so?”
“He thinks so, dear India, because it’s true.” Heloise sailed down the stairs and didn’t so much as pause before throwing her arms around India in a warm embrace. “My darling girl, I am so sorry I worried you. That was the very last thing I wished to do.”
Whether it was her concern over Heloise or the awful ache that had gripped her since leaving Derek, but something inside India shattered at Heloise’s touch and she sobbed against the older woman.
“My poor child.” Heloise rocked India and patted her head. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you cry before. Not even when you were a girl.”
“I don’t cry.” India sobbed. “I never cry.”
“I know, dear. I’ve always found it most concerning.”
India drew her head back and frowned. “Why?”
“Because it seems to me you have always held everything tightly inside you. As if you were afraid to let yourself feel too much. Or perhaps let others know that you did feel.”
“Nonsense.” India impatiently dashed the tears from her face and stepped back. “Where have you been? Why did you stop writing to me? What is it that you didn’t want anyone else to tell me?”
“We do have a great deal to talk about. I have much to tell you, including one or two things I probably should have told you long ago.” Heloise took India’s arm and led her into the parlor. “You should sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down,” India said but sat on the sofa nonetheless. “What I want is answers.”
“And you shall have them.” Heloise settled on the sofa beside her. “But I daresay you won’t like them.”
“I don’t expect to.”
“Try not to judge too harshly, India.” Heloise thought for a moment. “First, I never left England.”
“What?” Of all the things India had been expecting—or perhaps feared—this was not among them. “But I received a number of letters from you.”
“I did write the letters.” She leaned forward in a confidential manner. “I found the Baedeker guides most helpful in that.”
India stared. “They were very authentic.”
“I thought so.” Heloise nodded with satisfaction. “I wrote the letters and planned the itinerary with the help of the Lady Travelers Society—lovely women, I might add.”
This made no sense at all. India nodded numbly.
“Then I sent Mademoiselle Marquette off on a tour of Europe with the letters in one hand and sufficient funds in the other.” Heloise beamed as if she was quite proud of herself.
India wasn’t sure she wished to hear more but, like a moth, this was a flame she could not resist. “And?”
“And that’s where everything unraveled.” Heloise heaved a heartfelt sigh. “Mademoiselle made it as far as Paris, decided to visit her family, somewhere close to Paris—I forget where—and then abandoned the entire plan, returning the remaining letters and most of the money I’d given her. This was extremely upsetting, and I would have discharged her at once had she not already submitted her resignation.”
India could hardly believe her ears. All Heloise needed was a dead body and a fortune in stolen loot and she’d have all the makings for an excellent detective story.
India shook her head in confusion. “But why?”
“For you, dear.”
“For me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Well, it didn’t quite go the way you wished,” India said sharply. “I have been terribly worried.”
“Precisely why I wish I could have discharged Mademoiselle Marquette myself.” Heloise pressed her lips together. “She has proved most disappointing.”
India stared. “I went to Paris to find you!”
“I know.” A brilliant smile creased Heloise’s lips. “I was so proud of you when I heard that. Was it wonderful?”
“Yes,” she said without thinking, but it was true. In spite of everything, it had been wonderful.
“I must admit I am a wee bit jealous. I believe I shall have to go to Paris myself soon. I have always wanted to, you know.”
“Heloise.” India inhaled a calming breath. “Why did you arrange all this to make me think you were traveling when you say you never left England?”
“Yes, well.” Heloise winced. “That is a bit awkward.”
“That is the awkward part?” India snorted. “I can hardly wait to hear this.”
“Sarcasm, India.” Heloise cast her a chastising look.
“Go on.”
“Very well.” Heloise folded her hands in her lap. “Some thirty-four years ago, when I was seventeen, I fell madly, passionately in love with a young man only a few years older than I. He was tall and dashing with dark hair and blue eyes. He had the most wonderful laugh and the wickedest smile I’d ever seen, as if he could see through to my very soul and my most secret desires.” She smiled with the memory. “You’re so sensible, I’m sure you can’t imagine how easy it would be to fall in love with a man like that.”
“On the contrary, Heloise,” India said slowly. “I can understand it all too well.”
“He was the son of a merchant. One of the reasons my father disapproved and forbid me to see him. I was far too timid to defy my father, which, in hindsight, was the greatest mistake of my life.” She hesitated, no doubt lost in memories and regret.
“And,” India said gently.
“And, a few months before I began my travels—”
“Your grand deception.”
Heloise ignored her. “Quite by happenstance, I met him again. His hair is more gray than dark now and he is not as slender as he once was, but his eyes still sparkle with laughter and he still looks at me as if I were the loveliest, most wonderful woman in the world. He is a widow now, childless and quite wealthy.”
At some point during Heloise’s discourse, India’s mouth had dropped open, and she now made a concerted effort to close it.
“We began seeing each other, and he wishes to marry me. But I felt—as it had been a very long time and we have both changed—that it would be wiser to become reacquainted with one another before taking such an irrevocable step. So, we have been at his country house for the last few months.” Denker was right—she’d never looked happier.
“Why didn’t you just tell me all of this? Why make me think you had left the country?”
“Because I knew you would disapprove,” she said simply. “I didn’t want to hear all the sensible, rational reasons why a man and woman—both past their fiftieth year—could not be together if they so desired. I especially did not want to be lectured about impropriety nor did I wish to be convinced to abandon what you would see as a foolish endeavor.” She fixed India with a firm eye. “It wasn’t. James and I intend to marry as soon as possible. But aside from everything else, I did not want you to think less of me. I did not want you to be disappointed.”
India stared for a long moment. Heloise was no older than Derek’s mother, who was now on her third husband and every bit as in love with him as she had been with her first. India had never thought of Heloise as being the sort of woman who had romantic dreams and desires. Apparently in that she was wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong. “You shouldn’t have had to go to all this trouble, spend all that money. You should have been able to tell me.”
“My dear girl, you are who, for the most part, I raised you to be.” She hesitated. “As for the money, well, I haven’t been entirely forthright with you about our finances, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a great deal of money, India. Far more than you imagine. I have arranged for it all to be yours one day, even after James and I marry. I have never spent it freely because I have a dreadful fear of being old and penniless and forced to rely on the kindness of relatives so distant they scarcely know my name. Beyond that—” she straightened her shoulders “—I’ve had money my entire life, and it has brought me nothing save a modicum of financial security. I have no particular skills except for my art, an unreliable source of income under the best of circumstances. Furthermore, I allowed my father to run my life—admittedly out of fear of losing my finances and in doing so, lost the love of my life. Aside from you, I am alone.
“When you came into my care, I realized I didn’t like the way I had been brought up. To believe that a girl was of little purpose except to marry well. Because my finances are sound, I never needed courage or strength. I did not want you to become me.”
India considered her cousin. This was a great deal to digest. She chose her words with care. “I was terribly worried about you, which makes it difficult to condone your deceptions—”
Heloise’s expression crumpled.
“But that you found it necessary because of my unyielding, unrelenting, always-right nature...” India met the older woman’s gaze directly. This would have been an entirely different conversation before India went to Paris. “I am so, so sorry.” She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“My darling girl.” Heloise sniffed back a tear. “There is nothing to forgive.”
“And I do think, given that you concocted an elaborate scheme to make me think you were traveling, you underestimate your skills. It was all rather brilliant.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I do.” India laughed. “I truly do.” She paused. “I am wondering, though.”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t matter really, nothing more than a point of curiosity but...” She studied her cousin, then smiled in a rueful manner. “How much money do you have?”
Heloise laughed with as much relief as amusement. The thought flashed through India’s mind that Derek was right. This was not his story to tell.
And once again, she’d been wrong.